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The Edmund Fitzgerald

One of the greatest ships to sail the Great Lakes was the Edmund Fitzgerald. The
Edmund Fitzgerald had sailed for many years until it sank in 1975.
The Edmund Fitzgerald was built in 1958; it was 729 feet long and weighed 13,632 tons (Stonehouse 13). This was the largest ship to sail the Great Lakes until 1971(Stonehouse 13). The Edmund Fitzgerald had a sister ship called the Arthur B. Homer, which was the second biggest ship on the great lakes (Stonehouse 13). The Edmund Fitzgerald had a 7,000 horsepower steam turbine engine that could push the ship at around 16 miles an hour (Stonehouse 13). Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee owned the ship. Aboard the ship there were 29 crew members, the captain, 3 licensed deck officers, a chief engineer, 4 licensed engineering officers, and 20 unlicensed personnel (U.S. Marine Reports). The ships captain was Ernest Mcsorley who was a master of the Great Lakes and had 44 years sailing them (Stonehouse 25). The ship had sailed the great lakes for many years until that day in 1975 when it was never seen again.
The Edmund Fitzgerald had left a port in Superior, Wis. At around 2:15 pm
on November 09, 1975 (Stonehouse 24). The ship was fully fueled and loaded for its trip to Detroit Michigan. The boat had traveled about two hours across lake superior when it became in sight of another boat, the Arthur M. Anderson. Around 7:00 Pm the Edmund Fitzgerald started to come across bad weather conditions and had to change its course. The Fitzgerald and the Anderson both changed course and started heading to the lakes more northern waters, which was called the “fall north route” (Stonehouse 25). The two ships had traveled along the same course for many hours and the storm was still very strong. The two ships were battling waves of 10-12 feet, winds of up to fifty knots, and even snow (Stonehouse 26). The Anderson was about 16 miles away from the Fitzgerald when the watc...